"Still the prushaugh vooe grows! For the winds are his foes, And scatter the seed, Of the fearful weed, O'er mountain and moor; While weary and sore, I travel, up-rooting Each bright green shooting:-- But the winds are his foes, And the prushaugh still grows! Oh! mee llanuv! mee lanuv!"
And says she, "Mee task will never be ended; for mee tears water the seeds, while I pull up the ould plants that bore them. Oh! Johnny! where are you, my son?--Come to your mother and help her, my darling!"
So then he staggered up to her, but she didn't know him!--the mother didn't know the son she doated on,--but cursed him, and called him "Dick Blaney," and "Hearthmoneyman!"--All this it was that drove Johnny O'Rourke to run home, like one out of his senses, and make his confession.
It's said, that he tried, at the bar, with tears and lamentation, which wasn't expected of him, to save his life; or, at any rate, to get a long day given him:--promising how good he'd be, if he was let live, and pleading the years he'd passed in repentance. But you'd guess, if I did'nt tell you, that such blarney, from one who'd done as he had, would have no weight. So he suffered; and that, too, penitently, as I'm tould by them that saw him at the last. His wife spent all she could scrape together,--as he bid her with his last words a'most,--in search of his mother; but the ould woman never was found, as far as I know, from that day to this; and, may be, the poor soul is still wandering about, tearing up the prushaugh vooe, and singing her melancholy song.
About a month after the _cant_ at The Beg of all the goods that was in it,--the particulars of which Father Killala was telling me, as you heard while ago, when he was sent for by Johnny O'Rourke,--the large creditors that had claims on the land, and the house itself, made up their minds to follow the example set them by the small fry, who had paid themselves out o' the sale o' the furniture, and things o' that kind,--the goods and chattels I mane;--and news came that the whole domain would soon be publicly put up, and sould to the best bidder. Such tidings as this couldn't but grieve me,--I'll say that much for myself; for I didn't know into what hands the fine ould place might fall. And what would it matter to me, a poor ould cripple as I am, living here in a cabin,--you'll ask,--who had it, since I'd no call to it?--Why, then, I'll tell you; and if you laugh at me for loving The Beg, so be it, and you're welcome. It's in the small room, to the left, as you go up the back staircase, just above what's called the Oratory, and over-right the chamber where there's a portrait of William the Third, the long-nosed Orangeman, one side o' the chimney, and a picture of poor Jimmy Stuart, the king, on the other--it's there where I drew my first breath; and it's there, too, on the same day and hour, my mother drew her last. My father lived with the Veoghs, and so did his father before him; and, it's said, we once was owners of The Beg ourselves, and should be so still, if right ruled the roast. There's a pedigree of our forefathers drawn out upon parchment, in the form of a tree, stuck up against one o' the walls, by which it seems we were fine fellows long ago:--but that doesn't matter a ha'p'orth to me now; for I'd rather find a guinea without an owner, than have it proved that my grandfather was king of ten countries, and I could lay claim to the title as his heir, if it was nothing but the bare name I got by it. Not but what if I was a fine fellow myself, I must own, I'd rather have fine fellows than vagabonds for my forefathers; but as I'm but a fisherman, or next kin to it, I'd as soon have fishermen as King Ferguses for my ancestors;--and rather, too, may be: for while, in the one case, the honour of those I sprung from might make me strive to be great and honourable myself; that same honour, in the other, might make me draw comparisons, and be discontented with my own lot, and so neglect doing what I might, and go to the dogs,--don't you see?